Who Will Be the Next Victim of the Grand Bounce? A nonpartisan, nonjudgmental look at the “Hair-Trigger” Form of Government

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Canada: British Columbia Liberal MLA faced with recall threats

B.C. Liberal MLAs are facing threats of recall over a teacher's contract fight. However, this article notes the challenges of getting a recall on the ballot:

Since the recall legislation came into effect in the 1990s, there have been 24 applications for a recall campaign filed with Elections B.C. Only a handful got off the ground, and all failed miserably (one was withdrawn after the MLA in question quit).
The bar for recalling an MLA is rightly set very high. For a recall petition to succeed and force a byelection, 40 per cent of the registered voters in the riding in question must sign the petition within 60 days.
In a number of B.C.'s ridings, the number of signatures required actually exceeds the number of people who actually voted, in total, in the last provincial election.

and

For such a campaign to succeed, 14,226 people in his riding must sign a petition within two months. To put that in perspective, slightly less than 18,000 people in total even voted in Surrey-Fleetwood in the last election (including 8,200 for Fassbender).